What the Heck Happened to Rollerblading? (2017) • Hacker News Board

Re: What the Heck Happened to Rollerblading? (2017)

#131

Post by watwut » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 6:55 PM UTC

mthoms wrote: post #87

pengaru wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A skateboard doesn't have a speed problem like rollerblades Nonsense, utter nonsense.

It’s easier to both bail (jump off) and control speed (by dragging your foot or doing power-slides) on a skateboard. So yes, skateboarding does have a speed problem but it’s easier to control for.

No, absolutely not. If anything, having controll on skateboard is harder pretty much no matter what context. And you have zero control over where the board goes once you abandon it on top of it - meaning you are more dangerous for anyone else.

Re: What the Heck Happened to Rollerblading? (2017)

#132

Post by watwut » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 6:56 PM UTC

Fricken wrote: post #57

bobbytit wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Specifically the one famous joke (that even made it onto The Sopranos).... What is the hardest thing about roller blading? Telling your parents you're gay. I never knew a joke could change the course of history.

Lower back tattoos were popular amongst young women in the 90s. Then the term "tramp stamp" caught on like wildfire and the practice came to an abrupt stop.

It is always disappointing when bullying campaign works.

Re: What the Heck Happened to Rollerblading? (2017)

#133

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 6:59 PM UTC

klipt wrote: post #95

neilv wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like, instead of those skaters being free individualists or rebels, they were excessively controlled commercial consumers. If so, how did that happen, in that case?

That sounds like a riddle. Do the trendsetters control fashion, or does fashion control the trendsetters? It's probably a complex dynamical interaction. The fact that the favored brands kept changing though, suggests to me that the corporations weren't exactly in control (otherwise the first winning brand would have presumably preferred to permanently monopolize the market).

[deleted]

Re: What the Heck Happened to Rollerblading? (2017)

#134

Post by jhchabran » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 7:00 PM UTC

pengaru wrote: post #114

mthoms wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s easier to both bail (jump off) and control speed (by dragging your foot or doing power-slides) on a skateboard. So yes, skateboarding does have a speed problem but it’s easier to control for.

Dragging your foot on a skateboard leaves your other foot planted on the board, meaning the board is vulnerable to catching on any crack or edge while carrying most your weight, which will send you tumbling. You can drag your foot exactly the same way to lose speed on skates by dragging one perpendicular to the direction of travel, while your other foot is still perfectly capable of jumping you over any cracks or edg…

To shed some lights on why power sliding is so unreliable, doing so requires to be familiar the surface on which you’re attempting it. Being familiar with it means that you basically failed to and fell down multiples times before getting it right, which already requires a good skill level.

And you cannot assume that power sliding on a surface will be similar to another one that looked the same because a slight change of humidity, dust or grease may totally change the outcome and transform the slide into a hang up that will throw you at the floor pretty hard.

So if you combine a really thin margin of error with the inability to confidently execute it on new surfaces, it makes powersliding a pretty unreliable way of braking unless it’s an emergency, in which case jumping off the board is much easier.

Meanwhile, you can power slide at will in the skate park because you know the surface by heart, and it’s easy to get it consistent by how many times you just rode it.

Re: What the Heck Happened to Rollerblading? (2017)

#135

Post by brandall10 » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 7:03 PM UTC

neilv wrote: post #77

brandall10 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a skater from '85-'89 in the San Fernando Valley. I remember there being a narrow lane of what was cool... most activities that weren't skateboarding weren't, because it was a lifestyle, and if you weren't fully dedicated to it and had a good sense of what was currently accepted in the brands/decks, clothing, how you setup your board, etc, you could quickly be labeled a poseur. And this was a moving target. If…

That sounds like, instead of those skaters being free individualists or rebels, they were excessively controlled commercial consumers. If so, how did that happen, in that case?

The shift usually was to newer, smaller, more underground I guess companies with the best up and coming skaters. Skate mags/vids were a big part of this. There was always a sense of transition and growth, esp for street as people did more aggressive things.

So yes, there was a commercial aspect to it, but from a marketing sense, it was driven by being iconoclastic, being super in tune with where the industry was heading and style/trends/tricks/skaters was heading.

Being a rebel is chucking away societal norms, and I do feel that was how most skaters felt back then… you were definitely in a bubble.

Re: What the Heck Happened to Rollerblading? (2017)

#136

Post by Hasnep » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 7:03 PM UTC

dharma1 wrote: post #106

vr46 wrote: post #20

Still hundreds of us in London going out every week and my mate’s skate school has FLOURISHED during lockdown with online lessons being taken up by ice skaters, locked out of rinks everywhere…

Hey where do you recommend skating in London? Also, what blades would you recommend for a noob? Been looking at FR X or FR 2 but have no idea what I’m buying really

Not the person you're replying to but my advice would be to first make sure you know what type of skating you're going to be doing, because city skating/freeskating has different needs to fitness skating.

If you're looking at freeskates then you can't really go wrong with FRs, Rollerblade's RB series or maybe some Powerslide skates. Just check how wide your feet are because they can fit very differently, even within the same brand the RB skates are quite wide and Twister Edge skates are narrow.

Ideally try them on and get a feel for what's most comfortable for you, you can swap out the frames and wheels for something better later on, and usually the liner too.

Re: What the Heck Happened to Rollerblading? (2017)

#137

Post by odessacubbage » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 7:04 PM UTC

Svperstar wrote: post #12

About 10 years ago I read a bunch of former roller bladers and skateboarders talking about the death of rollerblading in the 1990s. It is much easier to do tricks on rollerblades, also it was viewed as a "gay" activity in a much more homophobic time in society. There was a picture of a rollerblader in a skating mag and they photoshopped pink makeup on his face and made his rollerblades purple. Skaters started calling…

inliners got a reputation for waxing the absolute shit out of spots which is considered a somewhat major party foul, especially in the more cloistered, local centric skate scenes of the 90s and early 2000s. bmxers were disliked for similar reasons; pegs absolutely destroy ledges. there is also the perpetual problem of access to a limited resource, i've observed my dad going through similar flame wars concerning motorized and non motorized access to backcountry trails, albeit he called hikers the trail gestapo rather than fags. i imagine similar cultural clashes can be observed around lake and beachside hobbies and the tensions between skiiers and snowboarders, bolt vs trad climbers, etc are well documented. skateboarding has always been run by and for 16 year old boys, which is the way it should be, and they labeled these things with the vernacular they knew. if it's any consolation, that kid with the shaved head & blind jeans who called you a fruitbooter in 1995 probably called his dad, his biology teacher and anyone else within earshot names that were several magnitudes worse.

also in a final twist of irony, skateboarding's transition into an olympic sport with leagues and rules has put it under the control of world skate, a rollerblading organization.

>https://skateboarding.transworld.net/news/from-bad-to-worse-...

Re: What the Heck Happened to Rollerblading? (2017)

#138

Post by emodendroket » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 7:07 PM UTC

the_third_wave wrote: post #31

Svperstar wrote: post #12

About 10 years ago I read a bunch of former roller bladers and skateboarders talking about the death of rollerblading in the 1990s. It is much easier to do tricks on rollerblades, also it was viewed as a "gay" activity in a much more homophobic time in society. There was a picture of a rollerblader in a skating mag and they photoshopped pink makeup on his face and made his rollerblades purple. Skaters started calling…

What happened is that I moved to the Swedish countryside and as such was confronted with hills and unpaved roads. When I lived in the Netherlands I used skates for transport in lieu of a bicycle because they're far easier to take along on public transport. I skated to the station, skated into the train, skated off it after 1.5 hours and 150 km, skated to my job and repeated this on my way home. I was just as fast as…

"Homophobia" also refers to more generally negative attitudes about homosexuality, not just the fear the name suggests.

Re: What the Heck Happened to Rollerblading? (2017)

#139

Post by emodendroket » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 7:09 PM UTC

the_third_wave wrote: post #96

mkl wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You spent >3 hours a day just commuting? I can't imagine doing that. What did you do on the train?

Read, work, speak to people, look out of the window, drink some tea, nothing at all - there are many ways to spend time in a train. The commute would have been just as long (if not longer) by car but that would be time wasted instead of time for myself. Seeing those traffic jams from behind the train window (in the morning, by the time I went home the evening rush was already over) just was the icing on the cake, ima…

If my commute were 3 hours, regardless of mode, I'd either move or find a new job.

Re: What the Heck Happened to Rollerblading? (2017)

#140

Post by odessacubbage » Sun, Sep 05, 2021, 7:18 PM UTC

silverpepsi wrote: post #117

dochtman wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, homophobia is a thing even in NL; what I think the GP post was trying to point out is that there’s been no connection between inline skating and any particular sexual orientation in NL. That rings true to me as another Dutchman who owns inline skates (though only for three years).

Well there's a more fundamental dependency we don't have an answer to - Is it common in either language (or perhaps English is used in this context) to make fun of things that disgust you by calling them gay? Growing up in the Midwest of the US in the early 90s, I knew to call things 'gay' if I wanted to discourage my friends from doing them much earlier than my Christian parents allowed me to find out the secret of…

it's easy for people to look at 90's/2000's vernacular and assume a level of explicit bigotry that simply was not necessarily present. kids will always be drawn to an easy shorthand to use as a pejorative, preferably one that distinguishes them from earlier generations and makes their parents mad. they will probably start using the term through osmosis without even understanding its webster definition because that won't be their definition. gay/fag has basically been superseded by cuck/cringe/simp etc and those terms will similarly be replaced by something else within 5 years but functionally all these terms end up fulfilling the same purposed which is very quickly divorced from their actual dictionary meaning, should one even exist.